Monday, July 7, 2008

Wow, how did Beck slip an album past me? I mean I was diggin' the single Chemtrails but I completely forgot about the impending LP to be released, Modern Guilt. I remembered today after reading the review on Pitchfork this morning. So, I grabbed a copy and loaded it up on the 'ole Pod and went out for a nice afternoon bike ride. The album was produced by Danger Mouse, which is never a bad thing. Lately, Danger Mouse has heavily infiltrated my most recent listening escapades, which the new Black Keys release, the hip hop gem I recently stumbled upon: DangerDoom, and now this.

Anyway, on to the album. I think the best way to describe it would be: If Beck had a short term celebrity marriage with Spoon, only to be broken off because Spoon just didn't have the thetans to make it work. Only to find out that during the course of things, the two churned out a booming baby boy named Danger Mouse. Heh, all jokes aside though, I really enjoyed the album. Beck seems to have run out of genres to mimic, relying on the straightforwardness of good ole rock and roll, with a touch of Danger Mouses signiture style. Although not groundbreaking, he makes it work and the result is very satisfying. However, at second glance it's not as one dimensional as I thought, lot's of socially relevant lyrics that make me think Beck really put exactly what he was feeling into the album. I'm not sure where I would place it in his exciting storyline of a discography, but I'm sure it will rank pretty high looking back years from now.